C/IL 102L Laboratory 2

Communications: E-Mail & Web Browsing

Communications between individuals using computers depends on the computers being connected together. Two computers can communicate via telephone lines if each has modem and communications software. The two computers are “automatically” hooked together if they both are on the same network. Since the Internet is a worldwide network, a computer hooked to the Internet is linked with all computers on the Internet. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide ways for individuals to connect to the Internet from home via telephone. Most computers on campus are connected to the campus network which is connected to the Internet. Thus it is possible for you to access computers throughout the world from campus. In today’s lab, we will examine two ways that a computer can be used to communicate. Electronic Mail (E-Mail) can be used to send private messages to individuals or to groups of individuals and to respond to messages from others. Web Browsing can be used to examine documents stored on computers throughout the world.

The University of Scranton’s Web Portal – my.scranton.edu

The University has a web portal located at anton.edu which can be used to maintain your university e-mail account and your personal calendar as well as give you access to other on-line university resources.

· Log into your account on my.scranton.edu

o Start MS Internet Explorer (or some other Web browser). If you are in a computer lab on campus it will probably default to my.scranton.edu. But if you’re using your own computer or some other computer you might need to type anton.edu into the address bar. If you use a strange browser a page will be loaded warning you to not do this. However this site works with the Opera Browser and Mozilla Firefox as well despite the possible warning to the contrary.

o There will be a my.Scranton banner across the top and a page with a secure login box just below it on the left. Type your username into the correct box. Your username is your last name followed by your first initial followed by a number. If your last name is long enough it may be abbreviated. It is the same as your university e-mail name. Your password, if you have not changed it the last six digits of your social security number. For example if your SS number is 231-45-9832 then your password would be 459822.

o If you haven’t changed your password you should do so now. This password is used for all university sites and MUST be EXACTLY six characters in length. It may contain letters, numbers or both. Choose a password that’s both hard for someone else to guess and easy for you to remember.

§ To change your password:

· Click on the tab marked Student [note that if you are a faculty member or administration or staff employee you would probably press that tab instead.]

· Click on Self Service ( UIS ) (in blue)

· Click Change your single sign on password.

· Follow the instructions.(note that the instructions refer to your password as a PIN).

· Click the back button on your browser until you get to the my.Scranton home page.

o There are several tabs across the page: Home | University Links | Tutorial and My Scranton. If you are a student there is also a Student Tab. If you are a faculty member there is a Faculty Tab. If you are a University employee there is an employee tab. We will examine the University Links and Home tabs later in this lab.

o Between the my.Scranton banner and the tabs is an area with the following information:

§ To the left is a link Content/Layout. Clicking here will enable you to customize your my.Scranton portal. This will not be covered in this lab.

§ In the center is a message: Welcome <whatever your name is> You are currently logged in.

§ To the right are 5 icons: e-mail | Calendar | Groups | Logout | Help.

· E-Mail – gives you access to campus e-mail in a separate window

· Calendar – gives you access to your calendar in a separate window

· Groups – allows you to set up and join groups which is useful for group chats, e-mail, and other things. We will not cover this in lab.

· Logout – to leave the portal. When you leave my.Scranton you must log out if you are using a public computer. Otherwise the next person sitting down might be able to access your portal and steal your identity.

· Help – gives you help with my.Scranton.edu

Electronic Mail

To use electronic mail, one must have an e-mail account. Students at the U of S have an e-mail account on RoyalMail. RoyalMail is an example of a Web Mail system. You can use a Web Mail system to access your email account from any computer in the world. Most Web Mail systems are the same, so if you have used Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, you will find RoyalMail similar to them in many respects. To access your RoyalMail account you can either open a Web browser to royalmail.scranton.edu OR access it from the my.Scranton portal

· Click the e-mail icon and a new e-mail window will open. iPlanet Messenger Express Welcome <your name> and a help and logoff link. Note the logout link only logs you out of e-mail not out of my.Scranton.

· Below the title banner there is a Navigation Toolbar at the top of the screen lists the different areas of RoyalMail. It consists of 7 tabs:

· The Folders Tab – Here you can Create, Delete, Rename, or View the contents of your folders.

· The Inbox Tab – Here you can read or delete email messages.

· The Sent Tab – Here you can view messages that you have sent

· The Trash Tab – Here your deleted messages are saved until you empty the trash

· The Drafts Tab – Here messages are saved that you have not finished writing.

· The Addresses Tab – Here addresses can be saved for sending e-mail to others

· The Options Tab – Here you can change several of RoyalMail’s options.

Mail is stored in folders. Your default folder is INBOX. All mail is stored there unless you move it to another folder. If you save mail messages I suggest that you create folders for your mail. For example, you might want to create a folder to store messages having to do with this course.

· Click on the Inbox Tab in the Navigation Toolbar at the top of the screen.

If you have any messages stored in your email account, you will see them listed out. You will also see 4 small icons below the Navigation Toolbar: Get Mail, Compose, Search, and Delete.

· Click on the Compose Icon.

A small window should pop-up. From this window you may compose a message and send it to one or more recipients. If the message is being sent to an individual with an account on RoyalMail simply type the individual’s USERNAME. If you wish to send a message to someone who has an account elsewhere then you must type the entire e-mail address. For example, if you have a friend whose user name on RoyalMail is WHIPSNADEL2 you simply fill in the To: field with WHIPSNADEL2. If you wish to send Dr. Sidbury a message (I’m the author of this assignment), you could fill in the To: field with my e-mail address , since my primary mail account is not on RoyalMail but rather on another system here at the University. The sidbury is my e-mail account name and the cs.scranton.edu is the network node where my mail is received. The @ is used to combine this information in much the same way that sending a letter to someone requires a name and an address. The complete e-mail address contains both parts. Both parts must be used to send e-mail to other systems. (Note: an email address never has spaces in it.) If you wish to send a message to more than one recipient, then separate the addresses by commas.

After entering the e-mail address of the recipients you may wish to send a "carbon copy" cc, or a blind "carbon copy" bcc of the message to someone. I usually send myself a copy of messages that I send to others to keep as a reference for a short while. The difference between cc and bcc is that the recipients of the message will be able to see to whom the message was sent and carbon copied to but will not be able to see the blind list. Now you may type the subject of the message. The purpose of the subject line is to alert the recipient(s) to the topic of the message. An individual who logs on to a computer and finds fifteen e-mail messages will need to prioritize which ones need to be answered and the subject is a convenient way of doing that. Now you may type your message. When you finish the message you can click on the send icon in the Navigation bar at the top of the window to send the message or the send button at the bottom. You can also add an attachment to your message (before sending it) by clicking on the attachment icon on the Navigator bar. An attachment could be another document, a picture, or any file of reasonable size. Note however that many email systems do not support attachments, so the recipient may not be able to do anything with it. Some email systems, including RoyalMail restrict the size of attachment that can be sent by an individual. (Note: your royalmail account is restricted to 20 MB in total size by default. There are also buttons to mark your message as urgent if you wish or to spell check the message or to request a receipt when the message is delivered or read. You can use the return receipt to inform you that the message was in fact received by the e-mail account of the individual to whom it was sent.

EXERCISE Ask the person sitting next to you what their username is and send them an e-mail message. Put your name, lab instructor’s name and lab section number at the bottom of the message.

If you click on the Get Mail icon new email will be downloaded to your system. All mail is automatically downloaded when you start the mail program. If your account receives new mail while you are using your mail account, the new email is NOT automatically downloaded for you.

EXERCISE

· Click on the Get Mail icon and you should see the message header of the message sent by your lab partner. [Note that this may take a minute or two to arrive.]

· Point to the message subject and click. The message should appear in the message window for you to read.

· Reply to the message by clicking on the reply icon and following your instincts. Include in the reply a copy of the original message and put your name on the message too.

· When the reply from the message that you sent comes back, forward it to the lab instructor to grade. Put your name and section number at the top of the message you forward so the instructor will have a convenient way of knowing who sent it. USE as your name the name given on the official role sheet for the class (Normally that will consist of your first name, middle initial, and last name. The lab instructor will give you the address to forward the message. DO NOT FORWARD THE MESSAGE TO ME, (DR. SIDBURY). If you do, your instructor will not get it and you will receive a zero.

· Save a copy of the message in the folder cil102lab.

· To create this folder, click on Folders Tab in the Navigation Toolbar and click on the New icon. A pop-up window should appear prompting you for the name of the new folder. Name it cil102lab and make it a subfolder of your Personal Folders.

· You will see the new folder in your folder list.

· Now you will actually move the message to the newly created folder.

· Go to your INBOX.

· Click on the subject of the message that you are going to move.

· You will be brought to the Message Window displaying the contents of the email message.

· You will see a drop-down list box in the toolbar that says “Move message to folder”.

· Click on the down arrow of the drop-down list box and choose the cil102lab folder.

· The message now resides in the cil102lab folder.

· Click on the Folders Tab in the Navigation Toolbar to view your folder list.

· Verify that your message has been moved by clicking on the link to your cil102lab folder.

· Now that you have finished this section you must log out of RoyalMail. To logout, click on the logout option that is located in the Navigation Toolbar at the far right. Click on “yes” if asked to verify your logout attempt. (Note: In any email program, you should always log out when finished. Simply closing the web browser window is not a secure way of logging out.)

More myScranton

· Log out of e-mail if you haven’t already done so.

· There is an answer sheet for the next two parts. Your instructor may have a copy for you or you can download a (double) copy from .scranton.edu/~sidbury/c ourses/cil_102Lab/current/lab2_answers.doc

· Go to the HOME tab of my.Scranton if you’re not already there.

· Click on the STUDENT tab and then click on the Course Search link.

o This brings you to a screen where you can look for course information. This is especially useful when you’re getting ready to register for next semester. You can check to see if the section of a particular course that you want still has seats available. We will illustrate how to use this system.

o Click the arrow at the end of the text box under Search by Term and choose the current term. Click Submit

o Choose Computer/Information Literacy under subject. Fill in the course number with 102. Pick your instructor out of the list. [NOTE: if your instructor does not appear on the list then choose Dr. Sidbury (Sidbury, James R.)] [Additional Note: the course number 102 will find all courses whose number starts with 102 which includes 102L. Thus if, for example, you choose history as your course and put a 2 as the course number it will list all courses at the 200 level.]